9 traits of great IT leaders
“Because they can’t go to a boss to get issues resolved, they have to be able to influence their peers. They have to solve problems horizontally,” he adds.
Similarly, modern CIOs have assumed more responsibility for deliverables outside of IT, namely digital and tech-enabled business initiatives, which require CIOs to bring other executives and teams along for the journey.
Consequently, Sigurdson says, “CIOs need to be able to not just teach but also to engage other senior leaders on meaningful topics and work with their peers on challenging tradeoffs in order to succeed.”
4. They are assertive
Assertiveness is another trait of great IT leaders, says Jim Knight, executive director of the SIM Leadership Institute.
He explains: “A lot of IT folks still, today, become more like order-takers and feel subservient to what we call the business. But they need to be able to push back on business requests that don’t make sense. That goes hand in hand with having business acumen, knowing the business, and knowing the industry, so you can understand the business value of the project.”
To be clear, Knight says being assertive is not about being uncooperative, dictatorial, or aggressive; this is not about returning to the days when IT was viewed as the Department of No. Rather, “it’s applying yourself to what’s right, and doing that in a professional way. It’s saying, ‘Let’s have a conversation about it.’ That requires confidence — confidence in your IT skills and in your business skills,” he says.
For instance, assertive CIOs can confidently push back on demands for unrealistic project deadlines or unworkable strategies, using their communication and influencing skills to convert others to their perspective, Knight says.
These IT leaders “are not afraid to use knowledge to convey their points, explain what won’t work, and show [others] the path that can be done and what supports — like extra budget or more time — that it will take,” adds Knight, who prior to his SIM role worked in various IT leadership positions, including global CIO at Chubb Insurance.
5. They have faith in other people
Great IT leaders also recognize greatness in others.
Longtime IT exec and former consultant Jamie Smith calls this “being people positive.”
“It’s having a belief in your team and their abilities and helping them do their best work,” he says, noting that to do this, managers and executives must recognize that “problems are best solved by the teams where the work is being done versus being Bobby Fischer and moving all the chess pieces around.”
He adds: “The complexity of what we’re doing in IT is increasing, and [IT managers and executives] can’t be command-and-control anymore. Being aware of that is a huge differentiator for who will be most successful.”
Smith, now CIO of the University of Phoenix, says he has seen the value of taking this approach.
Early in his CIO tenure at the university, his IT department experienced a systems outage as it worked on migrating from a data center to the cloud, he says.
“It was with a team that was still relatively new to me, and they kept saying, ‘Give us 20 more minutes.’ I had to lean in and say, ‘Ok.’ That showed them that I believed in them, and that helped them trust and support me,” Smith explains.
6. They are decisive — even when short on facts
Technology is evolving at a furious pace, and IT — and the organization as a whole — must be capable of moving just as quickly.
“To lead today, you must have the ability to make high-velocity and complex decisions without all the information on hand; you need to be able to operate in a less certain world and make a high-quality decision without all the information,” Smith says.
He points to the circumstances around emerging technologies such as generative AI to demonstrate this point. Those CIOs who formulated good strategies with the limited information they had as the tech hit the market were the ones most successful in leading their organizations into the future — while “those who needed lots of details before making a decision are having trouble keeping up,” he says.
But it’s not all about making good decisions fast, he says; it’s also about creating the right safety nets for such actions.
CIOs who can decide fast and “limit the blast radius” of potential failures by using, for example, agile development principles and iterative delivery, are the standout leaders, Smith says. That’s because this approach enables them to learn and test without going all in. “They experiment and can come back if it doesn’t go well,” he says, noting that this tactic gives people the confidence to follow where those IT leaders decide to go.
7. They attend to their teams
Leaders don’t spend all their time focused on themselves, says Bev Kaye, founder and CEO of BevKaye&Co and a speaker, consultant, and author on career development, employee engagement, employee retention, and leadership.
Leaders spend a significant amount of energy getting to know those who they lead, too, Kaye says. They know what motivates individual team members and what matters most to them. They know their strengths and how they can best contribute to making a strategic vision a reality.
According to Kaye, leaders bring the same curiosity to building relationships with their teams that they bring to solving technical and business problems. These leaders seek out additional information and more details from their team members. They ask questions to better understand what individuals on their teams think so that, as their boss, they can better support them. And they pick up queues, such as body language or the mood of a room, to intuit how people are really feeling, enabling them to know to pause and dig into what may be causing that issue.
“It all relates back to curiosity,” adds Kaye, author of multiple leadership books, including Learn Like a Leader: Today’s Top Leaders Share Their Learning Journeys and Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go. “This comes from a curiosity about your own team.”
8. They are inquisitive — and adapt to what they learn
In addition to having a strong IQ and a good emotional quotient (EQ), Sigurdson says IT leaders also have a passion for learning. That is, they have a high learning quotient (LQ).
This pursuit of growth and a corresponding willingness to change in response to that learning enable managers and leaders — whether in IT or elsewhere — to determine what’s ahead and how they and their teams can get there, Sigurdson explains.
“In addition to EQ and IQ, this commitment to lifelong learning ensures you’re not being left behind,” he says, adding that IT execs need to pair their LQ with their communication skills and ability to influence in order to get others to follow where all their learning is taking them.
9. They have a positive perspective on change
Although many IT execs are capable of devising and implementing change management plans, those who are true leaders actually view change as an opportunity and convey that positive perspective to others.
“You have to believe that the faster the change, the greater the opportunity, and that while things aren’t always going to go well, despite your best efforts, even those obstacles can be opportunities to get better, to learn, and to grow,” Smith says.
He acknowledges that this perspective on change, like most leadership traits, does not come naturally to most people; rather, it’s something that comes through intentional practice and experience.
But once you cultivate the ability not just to manage change but also embrace it and get others to do the same, you will have truly demonstrated your leadership chops, Smith says.
